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High-school studio-art students to offer their artwork for a worthy cause, to support Kenya

Art students, alumni and associates from Hopewell Valley Central High School (HVCHS) are, for a 2-week period, inviting community members to view and purchase high-quality limited-edition prints of their personal masterpieces during a first-ever jointly sponsored art sale over a two-week period from Friday, June 5, through Friday, June 19.

All net proceeds from this art sale, “Sharing Visions: Art Students for Kenya,” will benefit ongoing Hopewell-Keroka Alliance (HKA) health, education and infrastructure-improvement projects currently planned or underway in support of residents of the Keroka area of western Kenya in eastern Africa.

These prints of contemporary “masterworks,” created primarily by past and current students of the HVCHS Visual Arts Department, range in topic from portraiture, fantasy, still life, narrative, scientific, and zoological. Co-sponsoring this student art sale, along with the Pennington-based non-profit Hopewell-Keroka Alliance, are members of the HVCHS Model World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Connections Club student organizations.

“This art-print sale will showcase the wide-ranging talent of participating student artists at Hopewell Valley Central High School,” said HKA co-founder Dr. Lillian Rankel, of Pennington. “This special sale offers these students an opportunity to help fund projects in the Keroka area of Kenya, thereby helping improve the lives of village residents half a world away. In its first seven years, HKA, an all-volunteer collaboration, has raised more than $160,000 to upgrade roadways, improve health care, electrify school buildings, and install rooftop rainwater-collection tanks on school and community buildings, among other efforts, in this particular area of Kenya.”

Members of the greater community are warmly invited to visit and consider the impressive student artwork on display in the high school’s front hallway any weekday throughout those two weeks from 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. and on Saturdays, June 6 and 13, from 8 a.m. through noon. The 11-inch by 17-inch limited-run prints, on nice heavy-weight paper stock, cost $25 each. Order forms (with further details and instructions) will be available in the main foyer. Checks may be made out to “HKA” (Hopewell-Keroka Alliance). Purchasers will be contacted as soon as their artwork is ready for pickup at the high school.

The Hopewell-Keroka Alliance gratefully acknowledges the hard work, creativity and artistry of HVCHS art instructor Dr. Robert O’Boyle and his talented students. In addition, the Hopewell-Keroka Alliance heartily thanks the Hopewell Valley Arts Council for its generous donation toward the printing of the student artwork for sale and related materials.

Hopewell Valley Central High School is located at 259 Pennington-Titusville Road in Pennington. For more information about this art sale or about the Hopewell-Keroka Alliance, please contact the HKA’s Dr. Rankel at 609/737-8345, or visit the HKA website at www.hkalliance.org.

Mary Galioto is the founder, publisher and editor of MercerMe, and a lawyer. Originally from Brooklyn, Mary has progressively moved deeper and deeper into New Jersey, settling in the heart of the state: Mercer County. Formerly the author of an embarrassingly informal blog, Mary is a lifelong writer and asker of questions and was even mentioned, albeit briefly, in the New York Times and Washington Post. In her free time, Mary fills her life with excessive self-reflection, photographing mushrooms, and misguided adventures in random hobbies.
Mary also works as the PR Coordinator at the Hopewell Valley Arts Council, serves on the volunteer Board of Trustees of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail (LHT), serves on the Hopewell Borough Board of Health, is a member of the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance, and holds the elected position as the Hopewell Borough Democratic Committee Municipal Chairwoman.